116 GUIDE TO THE AUSTRALIAN MUSEUM. 



valleys where they had their habitat. Hundreds of the fossil 

 remains of these huge herbivora have been met with in this 

 pampas formation exposed in the beds of the sluggish rivers 

 which now traverse these plains."* 



The remains of BIRDS in our Pal?eontological Collection are at 

 present confined almost exclusively to those of the gigantic wing- 

 less bird of New Zealand called the " Moa " {Dinornis). These 

 occupy cases in tlie Osteological Hall (Nos. 13 and 8), not far 

 removed from the iNIarsupial remains, No less than eighteen species 

 of tliese birds have been described, varying in size from three to 

 ten feet in height. The Maori " ovens " have been extensively 

 searched by the Hon. Walter Mantell and the late Sir Julius von 

 Haast, and from the bones exhumed, these birds must have formed 

 a favourite article of diet with the older inhabitants of those 

 islands. In the Foreign Collection (to be referred to later) is a 

 cast of the oldest known bird, the Archceopteryx inacrura, Owen, 

 from the liithographic Stone of Solenhofen, in Bavaria. The 

 Collection, however, contains bones of an Emu ( Droiaaius), 

 from the Wellington Valley Caves, and the femur of an allied 

 extinct genus Dromornis, Owen, from the Peak Downs, Queens- 

 land. 



The PtEPTILI A are at present represented but to a limited ex- 

 tent. In the order Crocodilia the Museum is fortunate enough 

 to possess the type specimen of the Mysiriosaurus mandelsloki, 

 Kaup, from the Lias of AViirtemburg. This reptile may be taken as 

 a forerunner of the "Gavial" of the Ganges. The teeth 

 were similarly long, slender and sharp, and adapted for the prehen- 

 sion of fishes (Owen). The sub-order Thiropoda (Beast-footed) is 

 represented by a cast of the head of the Megalosaurus^ a car- 

 nivorous reptile from the chalk of Maestricht, Belgium, placed 

 against the gallery balustrade in the Geological Hall. Accom- 

 panying this are reproductions of several members of the order 

 Ichythyosauria (Fish Lizards), including Ichthyosaurus intermedins, 

 Conyb., from the Lias of England ; and a portion of the head of a 



* Guide to the Exhibition Galleries of Geology and Palaeontolo^ in the 

 British Museum, 1884, p. 29. 



